For those that haven’t played before, here’s a quick overview of the rules. First one to correctly identify the latitude and longitude of the center of the image AND say something about what makes this area geologically interesting…wins. The prize is getting to pick the next WoGE location and hosting it on your blog or picking a geoblogger to host it for you. If you’ve won WoGE in the past, you have to wait one hour before submitting your answer for each of your previous wins (the Schott Rule). If you don’t remember how many times you’ve won, you can look at Ron Schott’s kmz file.

I don’t know much about the geologic history of the place pictured below, but I picked it for a certain relevance to Anthropocene events.

Where on (Google) Earth #291? (Click for a larger image)

Posting time is 12:25 pm US Central Time (17:25 GMT) on 16 June.

Note: I’ll be offline this weekend, so if you solve the WoGE, you can go ahead and post the next one if you wish. If the WoGE is still unsolved when I return, I’ll consider a hint.

Comments (3)

3.276S – 52.048W – Rio Xingu near Altamira in the state of Pará, Brazil. If something miraculous won’t prevent it from happening, I guess here the Anthropocene will be marked in the future stratigraphic record by the Belo Monte formation, dominated by lacustrine and flood deposits associated with a dramatic decrease in fossilia diversity, all caused by the hydroelectric dam system, recently approved by the Brazilian government in spite of the criticism and protest of indigenous people and environmental organizations.

Nicely done, Peter. That’s exactly why I picked that spot. As best I can determine, the reach pictured above will be in a (mostly) dewatered section where the river’s flow is diverted out of the natural channel and into two canals dug through the floodplain. There’s a fascinating Google Earth tour and video about the project, available here.